‘Who is a ‘Khilonjiya?’: Sushmita Dev asks Himanta Biswa Sarma

Silchar:  Sushmita Dev, the TMC Rajya Sabha MP from West Bengal, on Monday whipped up a debate as she asked, “ who is a Khilonjia? What are the criteria to accord a particular community the status of Khilonjia? Who on what yardsticks decide whom to be accorded the Khilonjia and whom not to?” And on the basis of these questions, Sushmita asked the state government, why the Bengalis of the Barak Valley were not being accorded as the ‘Khilonjiyas’ or the original inhabitants of Assam as they had been residing here for at least last 150 years. Seeking clarifications from the Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Dev said, she would move the Supreme Court  in this sensitive issue.

Address a press meet here, Sushmita Dev said, the government should come clean and clear with the criteria of according a particular community the status of Khilonjiya. Simultaneously the government should clarify on the ground for rejecting another community from the same status, she further asked. Dev, who represented Silchar in Assam ads as well as the Lok Sabha as a Congress member in the past, lambasted the BJP government for playing with the identity politics with a divisive design. “One state cannot have different sets of citizens like Khilonjiya or non Khilonjiya. A citizen is a citizen, thats all,” she exclaimed.

Sushmita Dev said, the Barak Valley, a part of Sylhet in undivided India, was merged with Assam in 1874 and after partition the Bengalis who came to Assam was not an immigrant who crossed an international border, rather they came from one part of Assam to another part. ”So historically it is proved that the people of the  Barak Valley were as much as original like their Assamese brethren. Then why the Himanta Biswa Sarma government is denying us the status of Khilonjiya?” she asked.

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